keep it as a feast. In the observance of a fast on that day, however, out of deference to the sanctity of the day itself, all the nation would be agreed; and not the Pharisees and their disciples in particular.

Again, it is well known to those who are familiar with the original language, that the verb rendered, "I possess," in the last sentence of the Pharisee's prayer, never denotes to possess, but only to acquire or get. A certain past tense of that verb may denote possession (κέκτημαι, οι έκτησάμην, not κτῶμαι,) because to possess is the necessary consequence of having acquired or got. What the Pharisee means to predicate of himself in this instance, is the strictness with which he observed the law of tenths or tithes, down even to the slightest of his gains or acquisitions: "I fast twice in the week, I give a tenth "of all things soever that I get P." The reader must be aware that by the appointment of the Law, all who belonged to the tribe of Levi, and had no inheritance in common with the rest-and in some instances the temple itself, the poor, the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger within their gateswere entitled to a tenth of all the increase of the other tribes, whether from the ground, or from the flocks and herds, or from the labour of their hands, and the blessing of God on their industry, art, and

o See my Dissertations, vol. iii. Diss. i. 13, 14. Cf. Supplem. Diss. 520, 521.

P Gen. xxviii. 22. The Septuagint render Jacob's vow, kaì πάντων ὧν ἐάν μοι δῷς, δεκάτην ἀποδεκατώσω αὐτά σοι. These expressions are very like those in the parable, ἀποδεκατῶ πάντα ὅσα κτώμαι.

skill. He must know too, that the Pharisees prided themselves so much on the scrupulous observance of this law, as to make it a point of conscience to pay tithes even of things which, generally speaking, both in the estimation of those to whom they were due, and of those who would otherwise have been bound to pay them, must have been deemed too trifling to be expected or exacted; even the smallest of kitchen herbs, though little better than weeds, the mint, the anise, and the cummin, which grew in their gardens. Upon the punctilious observance of his duty in this respect, next after the strictness of his bodily discipline, the Pharisee makes his boast. He gave a tenth of all that he got, of every addition that was made to his income or his property, and in whatsoever way, every year. And indeed, to give tithes of all that he possessed, could his words have borne that meaning, would imply the doing of something of that kind once for all; not, as he wishes it to be understood-of his observance of the duty, per se, of tithes set apart for payment as regularly as they became due, of something, in short, repeated as often as there was occasion for it; in which circumstance he manifestly supposes the merit of his conduct to

consist.

THE MORAL AND APPLICATION.

The moral of an history which turns on the representation of two opposite modes of prayer, must, no doubt, reside immediately in the declared effect of such prayers respectively to those who had used them; which effect, as we have already seen, is plainly asserted by our Saviour, in the words subjoined to the account; "I tell you, this man went

"down to his house accounted righteous rather than "the other" that is, he who, under the circumstances of the case, to judge from the style of his prayers, and the nature of his professions concerning himself, had least appeared to deserve, or least seemed to expect it, was justified in consequence of them; while he, who from the strain of his address, and the persuasion which he entertained concerning his own claims to acceptance, most confidently expected to be so, was not made or accounted righteous. It is manifest, however, that even this inversion of consequences is resolvable into the general proposition, which sums up the whole account, and states the rule or principle applicable to all such cases in common; "For every one that exalteth himself shall "be made low, and he that maketh himself low shall "be exalted:" a declaration, which as it occurs more than once from the mouth of our Saviour, and contains so important a truth, we may be permitted to consider and explain somewhat at large.

Among the topics, or sources of argument which the rhetoricians of antiquity enumerate for the benefit and assistance of the orator, there is one that directs his attention to the good or the evil consequences, to which almost every subject is liablethe former as a means of persuasion, the latter as a means of dissuasion, in reasoning upon practical questions: and there is another, a particular modification of this in general, to which they give the name of Bhaiowols, the inversion of opposite consequents P. To the application of this argument it is

• Cf. Luke xiv. 11; Matt. xxiii. 12.

P Arist. Rhetorica, ii. xxiii. 14.

necessary that two things should be opposed to each other as contraries, and consequently if the one as a good, the other as an evil; that each of these should be liable to two certain consequents, the one a good, and the other an evil, and so opposed to each other also, that the good shall be the contrary of the evil in question, and vice versa, in each case. Under these circumstances, if the good consequence of the thing in question is urged as an argument in its behalf, it may be met and contravened by the opposite evil consequence; and if the evil consequence is urged against it, it may be retorted by the good.

A specimen of this kind of inversion of opposite consequents we have, in the two distinct propositions which are comprehended in the complex of this one sentence, "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be "made low, and whosoever maketh himself low "shall be exalted." Exalting himself on the one hand, is opposed to making himself low on the other, and each of these antecedents is attended by a twofold consequent; exalting himself by being made high in the man's own estimation, but being made low in the estimation of some one else-abasing himself, by being made low in his own eyes, but being exalted in the sight of some one else. And as, for a man to exalt himself would be opposed in practice to abasing himself, and consequently as the conduct implied by either of these things would be directly the reverse of the conduct involved in the other; so, were it ever a question which of these modes of conduct a man should adopt, in preference to the other, the proper good consequent of the one would serve as an argument of encouragement to it, and the proper evil con

sequent of the same, as an argument of dissuasion from it; in choosing between which, the man would be bound to compare the good as such, on the one hand, with the evil as such, on the other: that is, whether the good consequent, such as it was, of exalting himself in his own estimation were greater or less, in proportion, than the evil one, of being abased in the estimation of another; or vice versa, the evil consequence of being humbled in his own sight, were more than compensated by the good effect of being exalted in the opinion of another.

After this explanation of the principle of the reasoning in this general proposition, it must be evident that as he to whom the act of exalting himself is attributed on the one hand, is the individual's own self; so he to whom the contrary act of abasing him is to be attributed on the other, cannot be the individual's own self, but must be some one else. And so, likewise, of the respective acts of abasing himself on the one hand, and being exalted, in opposition to it, on the other. But who can this be, to whom the contrary act so directly opposite, both in its tendency and its effects, is immediately to be attributed, as soon as a certain act of the individual's own doing has preceded? What is that opposite agency, which will infallibly make low, whensoever the individual himself shall have made high; or will assuredly make high, as soon as the individual shall have made low?

No answer can be returned to this question, but one; that as it cannot be the individual, who must thus contravene his own act in reference to himself, by a contrary one to the directly opposite effect; and